Us on this List
by firiette
Summary: Dean's journal entries through the last six months before Hell.


Warnings: Wincest, swearwords, mentions of character death

Spoilers: Seasons 1 through 3, specifically _Mystery Spot, Time is on My Side_, _All Hell Breaks Loose_ (Parts 1 & 2) and _No Rest for the Wicked _(kinda)

AN: This is my first time writing actual slash as well as my first time writing Sam and Dean. Do be kind.

* * *

November 12th, 2007

I don't want to do the whole I-don't-know-what-to-say cliché to start off this journal, this last testament or whatever this is, but I really don't know what to say. How do I begin? How do you start off one of these things, anyway? 'Hey, Sam, guess who's dead? Have a ratty journal with my shitty apologies that won't be worth the ink it's written in after I'm gone.' Do I say hi?

Yeah, that works.

So.

Hey, Sam.

Guess this means I can't tease you about your hair anymore, huh?

#

Jesus Christ. This is stupid.

This is so fucking stupid. Bobby and that psychiatrist on TV are just so fucking stupid. _Write out your problems. Leave a goodbye for your loved ones_. What a load of absolute bullshit. Say goodbye? What if I don't _want_ to say goodbye? What if I want to say_ fuck you, Death, you ain't getting Dean Winchester any time soon_. What if I want to kick Hell in the balls and throw it down the stairs?

Say goodbye. Yeah. Right. The story doesn't exactly play out that way for us. We're not too good with letting go, we Winchesters. Do you suppose we got that from Dad? I think we did. Besides, it's not in our blood to do something as simple and final as say goodbye.

You don't want that, and God knows I don't want that, so why bother?

Put that in your fucking pipe and smoke it, Oprah.

I could make a list, I suppose. People do that, don't they? They catalogue a shitload of wishes and dreams and what-should-have-beens in tabulating order, with little bullets and numbers to sum up the stuff they'd been too busy or not interested enough in while they were alive and healthy. I figure I'd be good at that sort of thing.

I would make a list. Really, no lie. Dying people, that's what they do. Except…

See, I kind of have what I want. The Impala, pie in every diner, sex on demand. The great stuff. Jesus, I can almost hear you thinking as you read this: "Dean, there's more to life than pie and sex. What about what Lennon said about world peace and harmony?"

You have yet to prove to me that's a legitimately good song.

It's not that I don't need anything. Don't get me wrong, my contract would be goddamn _amazing_ to have right about now, but that's not in our cards. Six months might as well be six seconds for what we need to get done. So I won't be wasting my time, what's left of it, checking off things I want to do on some list. Lists are fucking stupid, too. There's nothing for me here – suppose I have no regrets, no wants anymore, besides you.

Probably won't stop wanting you. Never did stop. Not when you were eighteen, not when you went off to college, and not now when I'm gone. I don't think even Hell can burn that out of me. Anyway, I was told junk like that lasts.

* * *

January 12th, 2008

For the love of God, Sam, I'm goddamn tired of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Time for some Asia.

* * *

January 28th, 2008

You have nightmares. During the whole night you toss, turn, flip, and damn if I don't have to dodge an odd flailing limb here and there. And it's fucking clockwork with you, man. At around eleven, exactly an hour or so after we go to bed, you jerk – freaking fly – off the bed, jolting me the hell awake. The crazy thing? You stand there, bare feet solid on the floor, for a good thirteen seconds, long enough to start me worrying, before sinking backward to snuggle under the covers again.

You do the same thing half an hour after, and another time at around one o'clock. I get super tempted to punch you unconscious just so we can both get some sleep.

Again. Clockwork.

It's always great after we reach three a.m. without you spurring on your crazy gymnastics. You sidle up to press your head under my chin then (you're a closet cuddler, dude) and I have to feel grateful that the Great Wall of Sammy beside me is staying exactly where it is.

It's obvious they're not visions anymore. You haven't had one since we ganked Yellow Eyes with the Colt. They're nightmares. What they're about, though, I can't tell. The jobs we do, the lives we lead, would freak anyone the fuck out, make soldiers shit their pants. No wonder you have bad dreams. But don't bet the farm that you're fooling me. Not for a goddamn second. I may not be able to know for sure what goes on when you crawl into bed and close your eyes, but I'm not stupid.

What happened back there in Florida? I mean, what _really_ happened? You grin and joke and flash your dimples and you can't fool me. You haven't been able to since you were three and old enough to start in on lying. ("No, Dad, I had just one cookie. Can I have one more? I won't bug you anymore! Promise!" Seriously, kid, who did you think you were fooling?)

Fess up, Sam. More went down than you reliving a few Tuesdays. More than watching me die again and again and more than having to listen to Heat of the Moment. Something happened that gave you this hard, cold glare you get in your eyes sometimes.

The nightmares are about me, aren't they?

Shit, Sam.

Sammy.

Sam.

Here I am, sitting on these scratchy sheets that are _not_ _cotton_, no matter what you said, watching you sleep with your dumbass long hair falling all over the place, writing your name over and over in this journal like a love-struck loser still in high school. Like writing it will make a difference. Like it'll maybe ground me here, hammer me into the ground so hard the hellhounds won't be able rip me away. Your name is what's kept me here this whole time, it's all that's mattered for as far back as I can remember, so why not believe it can do the same now?

I wish names had that type of power.

I wish I could believe the way you do. You said you would save me. You would find a way to break the deal. I'd seen it in your eyes, then, a world's worth of hope so bright and so fucking _scary_ I didn't have it in me to tell you – tell you for absolutely, positively sure – I wasn't getting out of it.

Because, yeah, I knew it back then, too. I just _knew_, you know? I should've convinced you then and there to stop prying. To leave it alone. Don't poke the sleeping beast, Sammy. We were raised smarter than that. At least _you_ were. It's in every hunter's imaginary rule book, man. Rule number one? Shit happens and, sometimes, you have to just let it go.

Let _me_ go.

I couldn't tell you that. Sam, I should've and I couldn't. For one, I'd be the biggest type of asshole hypocrite, for being in Cold Oak and completely unable to let you go either. For another, there was nothing that would force me to destroy that huge pile of hope twisting around in your giant body. I bet I'll say it later, yeah, but when I do we'll both know I don't mean it.

And you've even made me believe. Just a little.

Not enough, though. Obviously. Since, well, faith hasn't ever been my strong area.

You were looking at me a minute or so ago, opening your too-sad eyes and grinning drowsily up at me, asking me "What're you writing?" in your soft, understanding voice, that makes me think you probably know already but you won't say it because then you're making what's going to happen in May real.

You'll make my death real.

I said something along the lines of "Your face", which didn't make any sense whatsoever, but you smiled at me, kinda lazily, as if it did.

#

Is apple pie better than blueberry? We should go to Georgia. Peaches, am I right? Peaches. (Don't make that face. Deep down, beneath the trillions of layers of killjoy, you're laughing. So suck it.)

* * *

February 29th, 2008

I remember when Mom told me she was pregnant with you. They'd told me you were going to be a girl first – guess even back then they knew you were a giant chick – and then they up and changed their minds, found out you were a boy instead. I was a real huge brat about it, too, and freaked out in true three-year-old fashion. I had wanted a sister so bad I stomped my foot and shouted for the longest time that I didn't want a brother. It took forever for Dad to calm me down and Mom gave me a chocolate chip cookie (always been a sucker for those, right?) and she explained to me that I'd like you. She promised. Said it'd be my job to teach you how to ride a bike and how to play baseball, my job to take care of you.

My _job_, Sammy.

You're probably mad right now, so pissed off you can't see straight and getting that stubborn set in your jaw you've had since you were born. And I'm sorry, okay? I'm so goddamn sorry. I'm sorry you died and that I wasn't strong enough to let you go. I couldn't just let you go. You're Sam.

My Sam. My Sammy.

You've fought beside me, slept beside me (but edit that part out just in case Bobby ends up reading this) and you've smiled, quick as you please, through our craptastic lives. Okay, you maybe didn't smile all the time, and maybe you have the most annoying sigh known to man. That's okay. That's fine. You're my little brother. Dishing out shit is stamped in your bones. It made you, you.

Shit, I'm getting sentimental in my old age.

(Do me a favour? Edit this oncoming part? Thanks.)

Do you remember the first time we had sex? Of course you do. Memory of an elephant or a college student or whatever. Plus, it wasn't that long ago. Only almost a year. Holy. Has it almost been a year already? Funny how time flies when you're having fun. Hunting down ugly bastards who want to rip your heart out and vying to get my soul back from the Pit? Oh, yes, it's been a blast.

But that day was good. Or, actually, night. Wasn't it night? It was dark but that doesn't mean anything because the lighting in these dinky, cheap-as-fuck motels is dodgy at best. It could've been in the middle of the night for the good it did me.

Weird as it might sound, with my sexual experience so much more impressive than yours, I'd never had sex on a floor before that. I suppose that's a blessing in and of itself. Those carpets are fucking nasty. And dirty as all hell. Don't the maids in those places vacuum? I mean, _damn_. Wasn't my back on it, though, right?

Ha.

Anyway. I'm getting to the point, Sam. Calm down. I can picture that crease forming between your eyebrows. Wish I was there to smooth it out. I wish so damn _bad_ –

Okay. Okay, yeah, moving on.

I'll never forget how you looked. And I don't care if this is sappy or chick-flick territory. I crossed far into the border of no return a long time ago. You looked…okay, I wouldn't say beautiful, because _you_? Beautiful? Yeah right. You're my kid brother and it's obvious I got the good-looking genes out of the family. But I was going to say you looked happy. So fucking _happy_. Happy and terrified.

You held onto me. You grabbed my face, held me still, begged me not to go. Told me I wasn't allowed to leave without you. "We go together, Dean. Together or not at all. Okay?" I agreed. I nodded, too afraid to speak because if I had, I would've said something too close to _I love you_ and _I don't want to go_. And that would've been too much for me. For both of us.

* * *

March 12th, 2008

When you were thirteen, you ran away for the first time, before Flagstaff. And, really, it couldn't be called running away because I knew where you were the entire time. Bet you didn't know that. Bet you thought you were so cool, striking off on your own. I was fucking terrified. Seriously, though, not many places to go in a town that sells its clothes in the same store you can find lens cleaner.

I don't know what set you off. One second we were eating spaghetti, the next we were tearing into each other and full-out shouting at the top of our lungs. You were, like, perpetually angry back then. At everything. Dad, me, the world, cars that couldn't compensate for your ever-growing body. Just everything. And nothing I said or did ever helped.

It was snowing that morning and the first thing I remember thinking when I saw the flakes was: _the dumbass is just wearing sneakers_. You were just wearing fucking _sneakers _when you went out, Sam, in the goddamn snow. In _Colorado_. Where was your oh-so-incredible brain then?

And it was so insanely easy, kind of embarrassingly so, to follow almost-teen you through the streets of that one-horse town Dad put us in. Do you remember where you were? I found you sitting pointlessly on a lonely bench in front of a coffee shop, jacket zipped up to your chin, seeming all at once to be too big and too small for the rusty, four-legged seat.

Giant little kid and your weird-as-shit growth spurts.

That's where I plunked down, my ass cheeks freezing off on the cold metal rungs even through my jeans – through my jacket, too, attacking my back. You would've figured I'd be creating some sort of body heat, but no. Not in this stagnant half-world, where up is down and the sky is in the ground. Winter always freaked me out that way.

It was freezing, the kind of frigidness that bites at your skin, messages a path into your muscles and bones no matter how many layers you wear or if your coat is made of flannel. Because why? Because it was winter in fucking _Colorado_, that's why. I'd wondered about nothing in particular, seeing you out of the corner of my eye kicking at clumpy snow with your wet shoe.

I didn't say anything, not like that would've done anything if I tried. You were more stubborn than Dad, back then. I didn't do what I wanted to: argue with you and drag your screaming, clawing, bony ass back to the motel just so you'd _shut up, shut up, Sammy_. I kept quiet, just waiting. Waiting for you. I remember you beside me, still except breathing, blinking occasionally, watching the snow fall.

You had looked at me then and asked, quiet, "Why'd you follow me?"

Which, to me, was a dumb question at the time because it had such a simple answer.

"'Cause, Sam. Sort of had to, you know?" I shrugged. "I couldn't leave you here."

I couldn't leave you there, cold and alone, wearing nothing but sneakers on your feet. Some things never change. I'd wait for you to talk, to get ready and come home, just like you'd wait for me to come and find you.

* * *

March 19th, 2008

(This one's private, Sam, so don't read it, okay?)

Dad, you'd be proud of me. I know you can't read this and you're most likely up in heaven pranking angels and driving God up the wall. I _know _you won't ever get this journal, right, but just listen. I have to say this.

I make him happy, Dad. Fuck if I know why, but I do. He chose me. Over Stanford and Jess and normal, apple-pie life, he chose me. Not just that – he protects me. We look after each other. Sammy spends hours pouring over these huge, ancient-as-Methusala books, until he's blinking and his back hurts, and still he won't quit. I haven't done anything to deserve that or his obsessed devotion. I haven't done anything, Dad, so do me a solid, would you? Watch over him from wherever you are. You're probably doing that already, but still. Sam should have one of us looking out for him even if I can't. And can you ask Mom for me – if she's up there with you – if she's proud of us? If she's happy her kids grew up strong and smart? I don't know for certain, but I like to think she is.

* * *

April 4th, 2008

Doc Benton, Sam.

Doc _fucking_ Benton. Here I thought _we_ had serious issues. That guy…that guy put a whole new meaning to psychotic. I'm pretty sure you can't even measure his insanity on the bucket-o-crazy meter. If you tried, it'd be up there in the hundreds of buckets of crazy. Maybe the thousands.

Forget California. The most fucked up stuff happens in Pennsylvania.

And, holy, if you aren't the most stubborn, dumbest bastard, Sammy. Did your brain finally leak out of your head because of all that damned shampoo you use? Charging into that case headfirst like you'd left your geek-boy intelligence behind in the Impala. Like, well, like you were _me_. Reckless and nuts and never smoothing out the bumps in the plan first. That's what'll get you killed.

It nearly did, too.

When I saw you on that operating table, I wasn't sure if I was feeling scared for your life or so fucking angry I could've killed you myself. Dammit, Sam, we shouldn't have done this case. No scientific mumbo jumbo is keeping me from pin wheeling into Hell.

And living the way Doc Benton did? Hurting people? Taking organs out of their bodies to fulfill some selfish need to avoid the Reaper longer? That's not living. It may not have been by magic but it still wasn't natural. It wasn't _right_.

I'm sorry I couldn't do it. I'm sorry I had to see a chunk of hope shrivel up and peel off in your eyes. I would've done anything – _anything_, you understand? – not to watch you so desperate to save me. Anything but that. I can't hurt innocent people to live, Sam. It scares me, a little, that I think you'd have done it for me. Hurt people, that is.

You'd walk through fire, smiling all the way, wouldn't you? I bet my favourite AC/DC t-shirt that you would.

By the way, tell that dick, Rufus, that he owes me a bottle of Johnnie Walker. His information was a waste and we got squat from it. Absolute squat. No way was Bela worth an entire thing of Blue.

#

If you have sex with anyone else, I'll fucking kill you.

Just kidding.

Go out and get drunk and get laid and get married to a chick with big tits who thinks the moon shines out of your ass. Have babies, too. Lots and lots of 'em. You should be a lawyer. You're good at that lawyerness. I'm gonna go ahead and be cliché and say_ find someone else, Sammy. _You have to take off and be normal without me.

But not really. I don't want to say that at all. Not-fucking-whatsoever.

I need another drink. There is no way I'm writing all this down while I can still see straight. Too sober for letting you go. What else is new?

#

I like the way your hair smells.

* * *

April 25th, 2008

You're pressing your nose to my side now, plastering your sticky naked sweatiness to my hip in the exact way I hate when it's hot outside, because the AC is pumping in dry, dusty air that does nothing, and because it's fucking _hot outside_. I recognize your morning routine – same thing, every day. Sleepy cuddling first (wait, no, not cuddling, I don't fucking _cuddle_) and sliding out of bed to shimmy into the bathroom and hog every drop of the hot water like the bitch you are.

I'm going to miss that.

I'm gonna…fuck. _Fuck_. I'll miss your fingers that are thinner and longer than mine and your loopy handwriting that _does too _look like a girl's and your condescending comments on the food I order off diner menus. And your ass. Goddamn. You have a nice ass, you know that? Of course you do. You know that. Otherwise you wouldn't use it to your advantage whenever you're trying to distract me or win an argument. That actually doesn't work, by the way. I just let you think it does. No way do I give in to it, no matter how hot you are.

Nope. I don't.

Shut up.

And again with the editing-out thing, okay? Bobby so doesn't need to hear about our sex life. I bet he figured it out, like, the second I stared too long at the hollow of your throat that one time and _he caught me doing it. _Felt like a stupid kid with his pants down the exact moment his mom walks in to put away the bathroom towels. Still, it doesn't matter if he knows, he'll appreciate us not giving him images of our passionate coital bliss.

Strike that. _I'll_ appreciate him not getting images. Just…ugh, just no.

Speaking of Bobby.

Talk to him, Sam. You hear me? When I'm…you know, indisposed…check in with him once in awhile. Don't you close down. Don't you dare do that. Sammy, you're going to clam up and lock down and go frightening, all-powerful hunter on everything in your path. I've seen it before and don't be that person. Don't lose the pity I saw when we got there too late, or couldn't climb high enough or run far enough. Don't forget to eat a bunch of salad and turn your nose up at onion rings and listen to that emo crap music I hate so much. Be that Sam. Be the Sam that prays for a soul who should've gone to Hell years ago.

You don't realize but I hear you sometimes. In the other room when I'm taking a shower or outside of the door before you come in with coffee and donuts. I stop, listen, hear you offer up prayers and promises if God will only _please, just please, let him live. _Other times, you speak in Latin, garbled, jumbled sentences I can't translate fast enough to keep up with your words. I have a feeling that it all means the same thing, though.

* * *

May 1st, 2008

Tomorrow is your birthday.

Tomorrow I'm going to die.

I should probably be productive today, right? Help you come up with all the ways this lameass idea of killing Lillith could go wrong. And it'll go wrong, man, ain't no mistaking that fact. Point is, I'm _not_ going to be productive. Saving people? No. Cleaning my shotgun? Nope. Getting out of bed? Probably not for at least an hour. I'm still debating the pros and cons of showering.

What's it say about us that instead of worrying what shirt you're going to wear to what bar, you're elbow-deep in demonic spells and hoodoo trying to keep your older brother from Triple Lindy-ing into the Pit? And what's it say about me that the only thing left for me to think about is you?

You're sitting at the rickety Formica table with your laptop, your freaky fingers pecking away at the keyboard, and you're _looking_ at me. Let me get this straight, Sam, you're not stealthy. I can feel your laser-beams from across the room, you dumbass. And, shit, don't look at me that way. I hate it. All that love, guilt, trust. Desperation, mostly. I can never understand what I'm supposed to do with that.

Oh holy shit.

Now you're shutting the laptop and sidling up to me, still staring, still looking. You're putting your hand on my leg, whispering about the stuff you want me to do to you in a voice so broken I can only think of shattered glass and eggshells, and you reach for my journal –

#

Okay, where was I?

Right.

It took fucking _forever_ to coax you from the flirtatious wiles of your laptop. (I admit, you practically initiated the thing in the first place, but it took twenty seconds and that's twenty seconds too long.) Guess no matter what I do, there's always going to be _research_ and _Dean_ taking residence over _sex_ in that brain of yours. I can live with that. However much longer that is, anyway.

Which brings me back to what I was talking about.

And, oh yeah, I made a list. I know, I know. That's a shocker. I said I didn't want anything and I'm sticking to that, okay? It's my last day among the living, you can cut me some slack. This list is different. It's everything I would have done, given time I don't have anymore, an inventory of what-could-have-beens.

One: Visit the Grand Canyon

– Dean Winchester? Being American and patriotic? Ugh. But it is the biggest hole in the ground, which is kinda badass. Who wouldn't want to see that? And we could dare each other to throw Twizzlers over the edge, see how far we could get 'em before we're caught.

Two: Eat peach pie in Georgia

– _Peaches_. In _Georgia_. And they're in a _pie_. I could die a happy man after that.

Three: Meet Brian Johnson

– That's pretty self-explanatory. Because. Fuck yeah.

Four: Get Angelina Jolie's phone number

– Don't freak out, Sammy. I'd never use it. But how cool would it be to say I'd gotten her phone number? And you'd get super jealous and bitch at me for weeks until I threw it away or burned it. You're predictable like that. It would be so beyond worth it, though.

Five: See you get old

– Sammy, don't you dare make fun of me for that. If you laugh, I'll find a way to haunt your ass, I swear. But wouldn't it have been great? The two of us, ancient fogies shouting at kids to get off our lawn? Except I'd blare my music loud and drink beer. Old people still drink beer, right? Fuck it. I'd do it. And we'd, like, get wrinkly and spend our time in the Impala doing absolutely nothing together. Yeah, it would've been great.

Fuck it all, Sam, I don't want to go. I don't want to go.

I don't regret doing it. Don't you think I ever regretted saving your life. It's just that…I had no other option. I couldn't just not choose to do whatever I could to get you back. Tear down Hell, set fire to every demon that ever was, whatever. It didn't matter. There is no Dean without Sam. That's got to make me the worst, most pathetic excuse for a person ever, and make you the exact same, but it's what we have. It's what we know. All we know.

So I get it when you hunker down in the Impala with a flashlight shining in the dark so you can read even if it's two a.m. and the sky hasn't turned a runny blue yet and you're still searching. I get why you do it – the reading, the searching, the bargaining with God. Believe me, I do. It makes me ache all over, but I get it.

But, Sam, I have to tell you that it's okay. I don't want to fucking _die_, dude, but it's okay. Acceptance feels a bit like giving up, you'd say. To me, time is up. The bell has rung. The horsemen are a-comin'. Yadda-yadda. I knew we wouldn't find an answer and we didn't. And I don't _want_ to. Maybe it's a whole testament on how fucked we are that I'd rather be dead than alive without you. Tortured in Hell for eternity instead of tortured on earth for sixty more years.

Wanna hear a secret, though? I think…Somewhere dug deep in me, I think there's hope. I'm not saying goodbye, just _so long for awhile, Bitch_, and _I'll see you soon_. Dad did it; I can too. I'll go to Hell, Sam, and I'll knee those fucking poor excuses for demons in the family jewels, and then claw my way back up here. Back to you.

Like always, right?

Then it'll just be us. Sam and Dean. Saving people, hunting things. The family business. Us in the Impala, in crappy diners that smell like grease, in the motel room, on the blacktop with the sun in our eyes. You wait and see.

(P.S. There's a tape of The Beatles under the back seat. Maybe _Imagine_ doesn't suck so bad after all.)


End file.
